Newbie function return question

Hello fellow programmers,

I am way new to C programming, but not programming itself. Been coding PHP for quite a while. C seems to be a very promising language, therefore I would like to get my deeper sight in it.

However I have came up with a problem that I cannot figure how to solve. I bet it is a easy task to do, somehow I just can't handle it on my own.

I am posting a shortened version of my code, it's obvious that you don't need it all.

Here is the main program:

Code:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <ctype.h>
#include "spaces.h"

int main()
{
    char *tekstas = file_get_contents("duomenys.txt");   
    int *spaces = countspaces(tekstas);
    return 0;
}

and here is a shortened version of spaces.h

Code:

int *countspaces(char *buff)
{
    int i;
    int spaces = 0;
    for(i = 0; i < strlen(buff)-1; ++i)
    {
    	if(isspace(buff[i]) && isspace(buff[i+1]))
    	{
   			spaces++;
    	}
    }
    return spaces;
}

When my program is using countspaces function I get the following warning: <...>spaces.h [Warning] return makes pointer from integer without a cast

Can anyone tell me how do I solve this warning and explain why (so that I wouldn't have this question again)?

Thank you in advice,
Faifas

Edit: I have solved this issue. All I had to do is remove pointers, so the fixed code is the following:

main program:

Code:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <ctype.h>
#include "spaces.h"

int main()
{
    char *tekstas = file_get_contents("duomenys.txt");   
    int spaces = countspaces(tekstas); // no pointer
    return 0;
}

and spaces.h is now:

Code:

int countspaces(char *buff) // no pointer also
{
    int i;
    int spaces = 0;
    for(i = 0; i < strlen(buff)-1; ++i)
    {
    	if(isspace(buff[i]) && isspace(buff[i+1]))
    	{
   			spaces++;
    	}
    }
    return spaces;
}

Just a suggestion for you:

Code:

for(i = 0; i < strlen(buff)-1; ++i)

This code must compute the length of the string every time through the loop. It would be better to store the length of the string in a variable, and then use that variable as the condition in your loop.

I think your program is counting spaces that have other spaces right after them. Is that what you want?